The Rotting Spot (A Bruce and Bennett Mystery) Page 5

  To My Lucifer

  You carry the blazing torch

  Of glorious rebellion.

  You have brought me light When all I saw was dark, dark,

  Darkness.

  I was lost, cast out,

  Searching

  When you found me. You spoke

  The divine words of the holy prophet

  And the fiery gates of perception

  Swung open, Illuminating my mind.

  You taught me to be strong,

  Shake off my weakness like adamantine Chains.

  I am free, free to be with you,

  Twin soul, into eternity’s sunrise.

  You have brought me salvation,

  My Lucifer

  My Angel of Hell!

  By Erica Bruce

  With all my love, from your Ricci, this year of 1996.

  Liz stared at the paper in her hand. The name at the bottom, and the date, strengthened the feeling of apprehension that Steve’s words had set off. Her sister moved in that swift unexpected way she had and took the poem from Liz.

  ‘Lucifer! The devil! You see Lizzie I was right! Who knows what Lucy has been doing, you can’t touch pitch and not be defiled!’

  Liz pulled herself together. Peg’s chaotic thought processes, as was often the case, brought her own sharper mind into focus.

  ‘Peg, I know exactly who wrote this, and look, it was written seven years ago.’ She took the paper briskly back and stared at it again. A piece of adolescent over-the-top emotional outpouring. She couldn’t imagine feeling this much for another girl. It was so unhealthy. The intensity, the obsessive quality, the sheer embarrassing nakedness of the emotion in it.

  She’d never given any secrets away to the girls she’d hung out with. The poem, painfully sincere, took her back to all the turmoil seven years before.

  ‘Peg, don’t you remember, 1996, that was when our Lucy took up with Erica Bruce. They were thick as thieves…’ Liz spoke lightly, but inside she was back to that time, and the unaccountable hold this friendship had over her level-headed, clever daughter, who’d always turned to her for advice. Suddenly it was Ricci says this, Ricci says that … In the end, she’d had to help Lucy break with Ricci, surgically remove the undesirable friendship before too much damage was done to her daughter’s future.

  She glanced at Peg, alerted by a change in her silence.

  ‘Peg, did you mention to Lucy that we’d bumped into Erica the other week?’

  ‘I – might have.’ Peg gave her girlish little laugh, the laugh of a person often at sea, like a distress signal, rather than a sign of joy or amusement.

  ‘I thought we’d agreed not to?’ Liz’s tone was still level. Peg’s fingers speeded up, the needles clicking like nervous false teeth.

  ‘Didn’t we agree that it was best Lucy forgot all about that girl? Didn’t we both think it would only unsettle her at the moment?’

  What Lucy had said, while undergoing finals. ‘Oh Mum, maybe Ricci was right! Maybe I shouldn’t be a doctor!’ Her own shock, the automatic words of bracing reassurance, making Lucy promise to do nothing rash, hoping it was an isolated outburst.

  Peg’s cheeks were pink, and a flush stained her neck. Liz’s light eyes held her pinned.

  ‘I’m sorry dear, I really didn’t mean any harm. I thought Erica was a nice girl. I had no idea she called our Lucy ‘Lucifer’. How could I?’

  ‘Oh Peg!’ Liz was exasperated ‘That doesn’t mean anything satanic. It’s just a joke about Lucy’s name. They had this thing about William Blake, a poet you know, this is typical of the stuff he wrote.’ Had Lucy been carrying this poem in her purse all this time? Or had she just looked it out since Peg had let slip they’d seen her? It had been very bad luck running into Erica just when Lucy was vulnerable. And all because of Peg getting involved with Stacey Reed.

  She could see now, how events had been building up for the last fortnight or so, just when she’d begun to feel secure. She began putting the objects back in Lucy’s bag.

  ‘Erica had a sort of crush on our Lucy. And of course Lucy couldn’t help but be flattered. They went through a phase of fancying themselves poets. All this twaddle about hell and the devil…’

  ‘But don’t you see how dangerous that is?’

  Liz smiled. Oh yes she saw the danger all right, but not the same danger as Peggy did.

  ‘It’s because Erica was a bad influence, that I didn’t want Lucy to know we’d seen her. It’s not the devil I’m afraid of…’

  ‘You should be,’ said Peg quietly, her head still down. ‘He’s here among us. I don’t know much, but I know that.’

  Liz looked at the poem again. Ironic, that Lucy was praised in it as a spirit of rebellion. It had been Ricci who was the Lucifer of the pair. ‘Lucifer seduced the angels to rebel against God.’

  ‘That’s right. Our Lucy’s always been such a good girl. I thought she’d just fallen out with that Ricci Bruce, I didn’t know she was a bad influence. She always seemed very well- spoken.’

  ‘You sound just like Mum, Peg! The point was, she wanted Lucy to give up the idea of being a doctor, just when Lucy had to start applying to med school. Telling Lucy she could be a great actress … could have ruined Lucy’s career. I didn’t tell you at the time, you’ve had enough to cope with. And now – well it’s not that Lucy regrets doing medicine, just she’s vulnerable to the wrong sort of influence. And Ricci is the wrong sort, well spoken or…’

  ‘Ricci?’

  Seymour stood in the doorway blinking. ‘Wasn’t that Lucy’s pretty little blonde pal a few years back? Any tea going?’

  ‘I’ll make some,’ said Peg eagerly, dropping the knitting and springing up. ‘You just sit down Seymour dear. And don’t worry.’

  ‘Worry?’ He looked at Liz. He’s looking tired too these days, she thought with a stab of pain in her heart. Nothing must hurt him. Not if I can help it.

  ‘It’s just Lucy’s left her car, and we don’t know where she is. I don’t suppose you know anything about it darling?’

  ‘We should be praying.’ Peg threw the words over her shoulder while making Seymour’s tea in his special mug with ‘World’s Best Dad’ on it. Lucy’d given it to him last Father’s Day.

  ‘What – why are you sitting here, you should have woken me up, we should all be out looking for her!’

  It was Liz’s turn to quail. Seymour so rarely went for her like this. ‘But where would we look? I’ve rung everywhere she might be, we can’t go looking for her like a naughty child. She’s not a little girl any more darling!’

  ‘She’s my little girl. She’s come back here, without a word to any of us, and vanished! Like M- … and there’s the sea! Oh my god,’ and he turned and ran out of the house. Liz ran after him, shouting to Peg, ‘You stay here, in case she comes back. Call my mobile if she does!’

  Peg sat down at the table, drinking Seymour’s tea, after first carefully transferring it to another, inferior mug. ‘I know it’s a waste of time looking for Lucy, but what does Lizzie know?’

  Outside, Seymour ran until he reached the headland. He turned and thumped over the bridge, Liz following him, and began to run round the edge of Stony Point itself. He stopped abruptly, chest heaving, looking down at the water.

  ‘It’s too big,’ he gasped stupidly. ‘The sea’s too fucking big.’

  ‘Darling –’ Liz put her arms round him, as the wind blew their hair about with tactless playfulness.

  Seymour moved her arm, and pulled out his mobile, fumbling with the keys, ‘fucking thing, blast the fucking thing – hello? Coastguard please, and police…’ barking out directions and details.

  ‘Police!’ Liz was shaken. ‘Oh no, please darling, there’s no need…’

  ‘There’s every need, it’s probably too late if she has –’ he hesitated ‘fallen in, but we need action! I can’t understand you Liz, why would you not want the police?’ His eyes challenged hers.

  She clung to him, burying her head in his
chest to avoid his eyes. ‘Darling, she’s lived by the sea all her life, she’s a good swimmer, we don’t want to cause trouble for Lucy!’

  ‘Molly disappeared.’ He spoke more quietly.

  ‘That was different!’

  ‘Was it? Are you sure?’ He raised her head to look at her face. They looked at each other, their eyes searching.

  ‘Anyway,’ he went on after a pause. ‘Just in case. And – and well, people can, sort of fall in, when they’re unhappy, run down…’

  ‘You’re not suggesting … oh Seymour, you can’t be! Lucy would never do such a thing, she’s too – well, she’s our daughter! She’s got Toby to think about too! You mustn’t go saying things like that, darling really. I’ve pulled strings to get her the best placement, we don’t want people to think she can’t cope with pressure!’

  ‘Maybe we’ve pushed her too hard – you wanted her to be a doctor so much, Liz! Maybe too much!’

  ‘It’s what she wants, Seymour, it really is!’

  ‘Listen!’ said Seymour. The wuff wuff of a helicopter engine. The rescue helicopter was usually on training manoeuvres a couple of miles down the coast on Sundays, so it hadn’t taken long. ‘Police’ll be here any minute,’ he said. ‘Or they’d better be. I don’t care what this looks like Lizzie. It would look just as odd if we didn’t call the emergency services.’

  What a strange thing to say … and why hadn’t Peg called the police, if she really thought something bad had happened? Liz herself knew it was pointless, but what did Peg know? Liz found herself shaking, as if Lucy really was in those cold rolling waves. Which she knew she was not.

  In Stony Point Hostel, Mickey Spence heard the helicopter as he sat at his computer. ‘Manoeuvres,’ he muttered, his dirty fingers tapping at the keys. Beside him, something matted in a plastic bag, and a stained Stanley knife with a nicked blade. On the screen, the skull-hunter’s blog hymned the joys of the collector.

  Extract from The Skull Hunter’s Blog

  Whether you’re sawing away with an old kitchen knife, or you’re lucky enough to have surgical steel, you are a true hunter. You don’t just want this head, you’ve got to have it, got to make it yours, and you do, you sever the head and manoeuvre it, beetles dropping like paratroopers, or fresh blood like brown jelly oozing, into a plastic bag, and then you run. To the rotting spot. And all true skull-hunters know what it is we desire above all other specimens. The human skull.

  From http://www.theskullhunter.wordpress.com

  Five miles or so south, Ricci Bruce, now Erica Bruce BSc, R.S.Hom, was running along Wydsand beach as if pursued, when the helicopter passed her, heading north towards Stony Point. She paused a moment, then ran on, faster than before.

  The sound of rotor blades became deafening, and a dark shadow passed in front of Mickey’s window. Here, it’s here, he thought, hastily pushing his blade and bag into a box which he shoved under his desk. He scrambled outside in his spidery way, and found the helicopter brooding noisily overhead, its rotors stirring up the sea and flattening the grass. It was above his rotting spot now, if it got any lower it might churn up the skulls … he could see Liz and Seymour standing together, looking at the chopper. Screening his calls, Mickey had heard Liz’s message.

  Mickey noticed his hands shaking. His eyes, startlingly light in his tanned face, focused on them and the tremor stopped. Got to keep it together. There’d be police all over the place. Just like when Molly went, all those years ago.

  Mickey’s thoughts went further back, to Stonehead primary school, where he’d been Seymour’s admiring lieutenant in their war games, and where he’d watched Liz effortlessly doing handstands against the wall, her long legs waving above her bunched skirt, tucked into her knickers. He’d always known she was out of his reach, lived on the odd friendly word from her; knew too that Seymour alone was good enough for her. Much of the time, watching their golden existence, he carried on alone, like some tiny rocky planet orbiting twin suns, so far out as to feel little warmth.

  But other times, when loneliness had reduced him to desperate and sordid measures, he’d blame them for it. Especially Seymour. Seymour took for granted what he, Mickey, had most wanted. Yes, there were times he’d felt like taking away from Seymour something he valued. Well there was nothing Seymour loved and valued more than Lucy.

  Back inside, steam from the kettle condensed on his cheeks like tears. He wiped his dome of a forehead with his arm, and poured bubbling water into his mug.

  7

  Same time

  Wydsand Beach

  Erica Bruce, five miles south, could no longer see the helicopter, but its direction had brought Stony Point and its memories vividly to mind, especially after her recent encounter with Lucy’s mother and aunt. She was running along the hard-packed sand, dodging joggers and dog- walkers. The evening breeze chilled her doggedly pumping legs and arms in their skin-tight Lycra, and whipped her long fair hair into streamers behind her. A good time to run, in the evening cool.

  Why oh why had she succumbed to that bag of peanuts last night? The booze, of course. The hunger. Same reason she occasionally succumbed to a one-night stand with some bloke. And what was he, but a giant bag of nuts? At least sex wasn’t fattening, unlike snack foods. Six hundred fucking calories! She could feel, damn it she could actually see, the peanuts’ calories clinging viciously round her waist. She speeded up, running to escape from the fat girl she’d once been and must not become again … her well-worn trainers pounded the sand, and a sudden stab of icy water as she splatted across a shallow puddle reminded her they wouldn’t take much more punishment. Part of the price she paid for being a homeopath, instead of some well-paid graduate profession. Virtue had to be its own reward; she sure as hell didn’t get much else. But she’d kept the faith. Though was it wearing as thin as her trainers?

  Father’s Day. She’d left her mobile at home, switched off so Mum couldn’t ring. ‘Ricci? Did you ring your father? Did you send a card?’ The answer was no and yes. She did the minimum, like he did. But she hated it when Mum asked, because she sounded dissatisfied either way. At least with Dad and his new woman living in France, she hadn’t had to endure the Sunday family lunch ritual. After the divorce, he was like, you’ll always be my number one girl, I’ll always be there for you. Then he moved overseas, and the emails, gifts, and invitations to stay had tailed off. Now she had trouble finding a Father’s Day card neutral enough not to be hypocritical. None of that ‘best dad in the world, thank you for always being there’ shit.

  Erica’s mother hadn’t been alone long, and her new husband hadn’t been much interested in her, a chubby, stroppy pre- teen. She’d learned the hard way, you can’t rely on anyone. In Lucy, she’d thought she’d found the perfect soulmate. But Erica was a hero-worshipper with a high standard in heroes. Lucy had fallen short, in the end. Liz Seaton’s fault. Oh, Liz was overdue a visit from Nemesis …

  No, stop it! Put them out of your mind! Erica’s working life was spent deducing which homeopathic type her patients were, a subtle and by now almost intuitive skill, and a useful distraction at times. Like now. That blonde woman was a Pulsatilla, that old guy with the Doberman was a Gelsemium. It was a sort of detective work, deducing the remedy picture. That’s what her yellow pages ad said.

  ‘Erica Bruce, Health Detective’. A bit cheesy, but she had to stand out from the other homeopaths somehow. Only Mum still called her Ricci these days. It had been a shock to hear the name when she’d found herself with Lucy’s family, oh those Seatons …

  Stop it, Erica! She concentrated on observing the beach. A white dog-whelk shell. A dead crab. A – scruffy bundle of feathers; a flash of improbable colour; a predatory thrill shot through her. Was it … Yes! A dead puffin, its beak felt- tipped with the splendour of breeding season, its short legs stiff, its plump little body attempting dignity with as much futility in death as in life. A species she didn’t have in her skull collection.

  Erica swerved, stopping abruptly to look at
it, and was knocked off her feet by something large and fast, rolling over and over on the sand to stop, almost winded, looking down into a thin, dark, face.

  She was lying on top of a man, his hands clasping her upper arms with rigid fingers, his arm muscles tensed. Both of them were breathing hard, their chests moving so that their sweat-damp vests were sticking together. He shook off Erica’s hair, which lay in coils all over his face. His expression, at first dark with anger, relaxed into an annoyingly laddish grin. Erica flushed, trying to control the rise and fall of her own ribcage, struggling against gravity which was pulling her down against him in a most humiliating way. His eyes were far too blue.

  ‘You want to be more careful,’ he said, his voice resonating through her rib cage. ‘Are you alright?’

  Erica rolled off him, jerking her arms out of his grasp.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said breathlessly. ‘I’m fine, are you?’

  ‘Oh yes. Very much so.’ He rolled onto his side and looked at her, still grinning. Hardly breathless at all now, the sod. She hastily stood up, smacking sand off her clothes and shaking it out of her hair.

  ‘You’re a little lass. I had no trouble bearing your weight. You can lie on top of me anytime.’ He stood up. Tall men made her feel even smaller.

  He shook his head to dislodge the sand. ‘There’s a café up there, if you fancy a coffee, get our breath back … Why did you stop like that?’